TORONTO - Offices are rife with bacteria, and not just in the washrooms, a new study suggests.

Scientists who set out to see how much and what kinds of bacteria are found in offices discovered there are plenty.

Men's offices contained more than women's, the researchers found. The arm rests of chairs and hand sets of phones had higher bacterial counts than desk tops or computer components — keyboards and mice.

But germaphobes should relax. The findings, published in the journal PLoS One, are no surprise.

Humans play host to swarms of bacteria all the time — on our skin, in our nostrils and mouths, and particularly in our digestive tracts. Where we are, they are.

"We've long known that bacteria are everywhere. We're surrounded by them on all surfaces. We can culture them. But we really don't know who they are for the most part, and where they come from," said senior author Scott Kelley, a microbiologist and professor of biology at San Diego State University.

Finding out what types are found in the average office environment was the impetus to do the study. There is no suggestion our microscopic companions put us at any risk.

"These are all yours — you brought these in. They're yours and they're not making you sick. You're fine," said Kelley.

Dr. Michael Gardam, head of infection control at Toronto's University Health Network, also stressed that people shouldn't freak out about these findings.

"I don't want people to look at this study and go 'Oh my God, my office is filthy,'" said Gardam, who was not involved in the research.

"No, your office is covered in bacteria — like every other surface you're ever going to touch. They're everywhere. And that's normal."

Gardam said the work is "kind of neat, in a geeky sort of way" but probably doesn't have any public health significance.

"It's kind of a state of the union of bacteria in our offices," he said.

Still, Kelley said that given how much time many people spend in an office, it's useful to get a picture of the microbial landscape of the modern work space. Knowing what is normal could allow researchers to figure out what's going on in cases of "sick building" syndrome, he suggested.

"I think it's worth studying because ... we're spending more and more time indoors. Something like 90 per cent (of the work day). Sometimes you just never go outside all day," he said.

He and his colleagues compared offices in three U.S. cities — New York, San Francisco and Tucson, Ariz. They took samples — swabbing surfaces — in 90 offices, 30 per city.

People working in the offices weren't given any warning, so they didn't have time to dive for the anti-bacterial wipes. "What we did is we just literally wandered down hallways. So they didn't really have any advance notice."

Testing revealed bacteria normally found on skin, in soil, and from the digestive tract. That latter type gave Kelley pause; it suggests hand hygiene may not be ideal in some offices.

The paper published in the journal suggests the difference between men and women might be related to hygiene too.

"Men are known to wash their hands and brush their teeth less frequently than women, and are commonly perceived to have a more slovenly nature," the article said.

But in an interview, Kelley stressed a second theory. Men are generally bigger than women, and therefore have more surface space on which to carry bacteria.

"I favour the size hypothesis," he said in an interview.

"I don't think there's anything special about men. I don't think they have a special type of bacteria that women don't have. That they're spreading more or they're growing more. I think it's more to do with surface area."

The types of bacteria found in New York and San Francisco were indistinguishable, though the counts were much lower in San Francisco. Bacterial counts in Tucson were closer to those found in New York, but the types of bacteria were different, which Kelley put down to climactic variations.

But Gardam noted the geographic differences could be due to the ventilation systems in the buildings tested. "It may have nothing to do with Tucson, it's just the office building they picked," he said.

The Clorox Corporation was one of three funders of the work — Kelley's university and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation were the other two. The article said the Clorox Corporation had no hand in the study and the scientists have no patents, products in development or other marketed products to declare.

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Where Are Germs Lurking In Your Kitchen

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The only thing in your home that houses more germs than the kitchen drain is your bathroom toilet. And this is problematic since the kitchen drain is in close contact with many other kitchen items. A quick way to clean your kitchen drain is to pour a little baking soda in it with warm water running.

You may think you're cleaning your plates and cups when in fact you could just be spreading bacteria all over them. A sponge or wash cloth can house 134,630 bacteria/square inch, so you may want to keep it clean. You can either zap the sponge in the microwave for a minute, run it in the dishwasher, or make sure all the food scraps are cleaned off and allow to dry completely.

When you need to wash your hands while making dinner, you have to use the faucet handle (with your dirty hands). The faucet handle essentially sees many hands before they've been washed, so don't forget to wipe it down.

A study written about on NBC.com found that "7 percent of kitchen towels were contaminated with MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), the difficult-to-treat staph bacteria that can cause life-threatening skin infections." The best way to avoid germy kitchen towels is to wash them once to twice a week, and allow them to completely air dry.

When is the last time you wiped down your microwave buttons? For many of us, that answer would be close to never. But think about how many times dirty fingers are in contact those buttons. Next time you clean the inside of your microwave (which we sure hope you do), be sure to get the outside too.

In a recent study conducted by the University of Virginia, "researchers asked 30 adults who were beginning to show signs of a cold, to name 10 places they'd touched in their homes over the previous 18 hours. The researchers then tested those areas for cold viruses. The tests found viruses on 41 percent of the surfaces tested, and every one of the salt and pepper shakers tested were positive for cold viruses."
To solve this, just remember to wipe down your shakers when you wipe down your kitchen table.

Make sure you mop your kitchen floors regularly, particularly the spot in front of the kitchen sink. You know how dirty that sink and everything that has to do with it can get, and the floor space right next to it is certainly not exempt.

Naturally, the cutting board is full of grooves and gouges from all the cutting that has occurred on it; those are great places for germs to hide. Be sure to thoroughly clean your cutting board with soap and hot water after each use. And it's a good idea to reserve one cutting board for meat and another for fruits and veggies.

Kitchen counters get loaded with a bunch of stuff. We throw our keys on them, grocery bags, purses, mail. The list goes on and on. And all these items that we put on the counter are loaded with germs from everywhere else they've been. Be sure to wipe down the counter regularly, and do it with a clean sponge.

Since the kitchen sink is where everything that's dirty goes to get cleaned, it makes sense that it's one of the dirtiest (and germ-iest) spots in your kitchen. The best way to solve this is to wipe down your sink regularly; treat it like you would a dirty dish.